ANTHR 4390 - Primate Conservation: Cross-cultural Perspectives on Wilderness Preservation and Animal-Human

(CA-AS) (CU-SBY)

Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

A. Clark Arcadi.

Primate species are going extinct. The goal of this seminar is to examine a variety of issues related to conservation in general, and to the conservation of primates in particular. For example, what is “wilderness”? Is there cross-cultural variation in how wild nature is valued? Can ethics be extended beyond humans? Is consumerism the real culprit in the global ecological crisis? How do human and nonhuman primate ecologies intersect, and how can understanding these intersections be integrated into conservation efforts? How, in practice, does one develop and implement a real-world conservation action plan? Discussions will focus both on theoretical issues and on the analysis of a new generation of real-world conservation initiatives that depend on interdisciplinary collaboration.